


Throwing A Wrench In This Old Clock

by Spaceinmyhead



Series: In Regards To Souls [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Meetings, Gen, Reincarnation, dadpin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27953300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spaceinmyhead/pseuds/Spaceinmyhead
Summary: The gods decided things were going to be different this reincarnation, and Ozpin is left with an incorporeal body, a 14-year-old, and a whole bunch of questions.
Relationships: Ozpin & Oscar Pine
Series: In Regards To Souls [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047118
Comments: 5
Kudos: 77





	Throwing A Wrench In This Old Clock

Ozpin will always tell people that reincarnating is an odd feeling. It’s neither good nor bad. And yet, even after thousands and thousands of years, with hundreds of reincarnations, he’s never gotten used to it. 

However, at least he could always know what was going to happen to his soul and the others combined into it. 

He would wake up and see through someone else’s eyes, but not have any control over them. It was a slow process, getting used to a new body and a new soul. The trauma from dying took time to recover from, time which he always used to learn more about the new soul that had been brought into his curse. 

Eventually, he would pipe up and introduce himself and the curse that had been placed upon them. 

It wasn’t a fun process. Usually, there was fighting internally with the new soul, as well as some external fighting on a few occasions that he doesn’t like to remember, but at least it was always the same. 

All of it was just muscle memory at this point. 

But he knew something was off this time the moment he opened his eyes. 

Unlike the hundreds of times before, there was no new soul, no new aura. There were just the souls that Ozpin had been used to for decades. 

He blinked a few times, trying to get his bearings. 

The room was brightly lit with early morning light through a few windows on the front and back of the room. It was a small space, though as he looked closer it was clearly lived in.

For a moment he thought he was alone, that he had simply been teleported instead of reincarnated. Which would be odd, but not out of the realm of possibility. 

But then he saw the child on the bed. 

He couldn’t have been any older than 14. His chestnut brown hair was ruffled from sleep, and Ozpin could just see some bandages poking up from where the boy was buried in the covers. 

Not wanting to wake the boy, he carefully lifted himself off of the ground without making a noise. The boy started to stir and he froze, panic starting to fill his mind as he watched him yawn and rub his eyes.

There was no way he could move without bringing his attention to the boy, so he resigned himself to just stand there and let the boy see him.

And see him he did. 

Ozpin cringed when the boy let out a shout at the sight of him, knowing that it was an appropriate reaction to finding a man in your room.

“W-who are you?” The boy said in a trembling voice, shoving his covers off and scrambling to stand up.

“My name is Professor Ozpin, the headmaster at Beacon academy.”

The boy was looking at him with more confusion than fear now. “But, Beacon feel almost 3 months ago?” He said.

Ozpin didn’t know how to respond to that. It did, however, tell him that he hadn’t actually teleported, but he’d indeed been reincarnated. 

But this time the gods had apparently decided to change things up a bit. 

This meant that he couldn’t just approach this situation as he had in past reincarnations.

“Ah, well, I did not actually know that,” Ozpin told the boy.

He slowly put his hands up as he walked over to a chair on the other side of the room and sat. This was quite a predicament, and he had no idea where to go from him. He was sure that this boy was supposed to be his next reincarnation, and by that logic, it meant that he would soon be the one to join in the battle against Salem. 

Oh gods he was just a child.

The realization hit him like a wild grim. The gods had not only torn him from his routine but had also forced a child to join the fight. It was cruel, and Ozpin hated the gods for that. 

But there was nothing he could really do about that now. Their souls had been connected and there was no way to undo that. 

“S-sir?”

Ozpin looked up to the boy. He was still standing there next to his bed, however, almost all of his fear had been replaced with confusion. 

“Are you alright?” He asked, genuine concern on his face. 

Ozpin sighed. “I’m quite alright, it’s just that it seems as though the two of us are currently in quite the bind.”

Before he continued he wanted to test something. 

He reached over to the small table next to the chair and attempted to pick up the book that was sitting there. 

However, the moment he touched it, his hand appeared to phase right through it. It didn’t even move an inch.

“You can see me correct?” Ozpin asked the boy, who just nodded. 

Once again he sighed, though this time he stood up. He needed to test if his hypothesis was correct, which meant he needed to find another person. 

“Do you live here with anyone?” 

“M-my Aunt? Why?” The boy told him.

“I want to test something,” He didn’t tell the boy any more than that, walking over to the door and going straight through it. 

He could hear the boy behind him yelp as he phased through it, but he ignored it in favor of taking the stairs. 

The house itself was small and quaint like the boy’s room. Wear and tear showed itself on every wall he passed, along with photos of what he could assume were family. 

The first floor was filled with the sounds of pots and pans, which Ozpin moved towards. 

He ignored the other rooms in favor of going straight to the source of the noise, which as he had assumed, was the boy’s Aunt. 

She looked a bit like him and was much shorter than Ozpin himself. 

With a breath, he cleared his voice. 

When she didn’t so much as flinch, he did it a bit louder. 

And when that didn’t work, he spoke.

“Hello?” Nothing. “Excuse me?” Also nothing. 

He even tried to get in front of her when she walked over to the table to put something down. But still nothing. 

It was just as he thought, his soul had reincarnated in such a way that the boy was the only one who was able to register his presence. None of this was ideal, but he supposed he could work with it anyway. 

The boy was still standing there when he got back, and Ozpin lifted a brow at that. 

The boy chuckled nervously, “I was hoping you were just a figment of my imagination. But, I suppose not.”

“You would be correct,” Ozpin responded, gesturing for the boy to sit on the bed.

“I have lots to tell you about, but first, what’s your favorite fairytale?”

**Author's Note:**

> First work in this fandom and it's not going to be the last! This is the start of a series where I basically rewrite RWBY as if everything went differently. I already have the second work all written up and ready to go in a few days. I love these two so much, and I'm so excited to finally be writing about them. I hope you enjoyed this!! 
> 
> Follow me over on Tumblr


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